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Live your truth

Eda M. Handly

Jul 31, 2013

I’ve decided against a Q&A this week. I would like to tell all of you how much I’ve enjoyed writing this column the past year and how much I appreciate your readership and continued support. I began my website over four years ago and never imagined I would land my own column in any paper. Nor did I think I had the courage to write a book and publish it. But I did it!

Through this entire experience I have gained so much knowledge about myself as a writer as well as my role in my own relationship with my soon-to-be-husband. And, hopefully, I’ve helped a few people along the way.

However, two weeks ago I decided to deactivate my site and now I’ve decided to “deactivate” Ask Eda. Maybe it’s because dealing with my own daily drama is enough; maybe it was some divine reaching-the-40-year-old-milestone epiphany. Who knows?

This conclusion didn’t come lightly for me but I’ve come to realize what is most important to me, the path I am supposed to be on. I also realize I can’t forcibly change minds no matter how creative my words, I can’t produce or save relationships that don’t exist, and in the words of my sister, I can’t begin to know or define for a complete stranger his or her truth, even when asked to. I can only live mine.

Some of you haven’t agreed with everything I’ve had to say, but there are a couple things I know you cannot argue; no relationship is perfect and no one has the right to judge anyone’s choices in love — or life.

And so I leave you all with this: Just be good to each other. We’re not talking rocket science here. Remember what’s important and live your truth. And if you’re lucky enough to find someone who shares the same, hold on to them tight. Because in the end, it’s the only thing that matters …

Advice columnist Eda M. Handly left her job in the legal industry to start a life-coaching and relationship-advice business based in Sandusky.

Comments

Stop It

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 3:12pm

Thank you very much for your honesty, Eda. May your writing bode well for you. You do have a knack to stir things up.:)

Eda M. Handly

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 8:31pm

Thank you for the kind words.

reporter54

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 4:00pm

I would love to take over your column. I love telling stupid people what they're doing wrong, especially in relationships!

Raoul Duke

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 4:01pm

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.

Eda M. Handly

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 9:06pm

And that, I think, was the handle -- That sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...

Raoul Duke

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 8:30am

Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.

The General

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 11:57am

Yawwwwnnnn, c'mon Jimmy, lighten up on the philosophical verbal diarrhea.

Raoul Duke

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 1:10pm

It probably doesn't mean much when you're in jail, I know.

The General

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 4:36pm

Ouch! Don't tase me bro...

LabMan

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 4:50pm

Good Luck and thanks for this column to allow G_Richardson to chime in with his own spin on his version of the advice to the questions.

Eda M. Handly

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 8:58pm

Thanks Labman.

The Hero Zone

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 6:35pm

Thanks for your writing and I hope your new direction helps you fulfill your own needs and desires let alone helping others you meet along the way.

Eda M. Handly

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 8:31pm

Thanks hero, much appreciated.

thinkagain

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 8:24pm

Re: “no relationship is perfect and no one has the right to judge anyone’s choices in love — or life.”

Yet as a relationship ”expert” and author of this blog, isn’t that exactly what you did?

Espousing your particular brand of moral relativism, all the while admonishing moral realists such as myself to “…enter the 21st century…”.

Another day, another lesson in hypocrisy.

Eda M. Handly

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 9:13pm

Incorrect think again. Might want to "think again." I simply have a written opinion. And maybe you should go back and read my piece again. Don't try to start a debate on something that is clearly not debatable. Live your truth, and as I said, I will live mine. But thank you for helping to keep things interesting during my stay here ;)

Nemesis

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 12:19pm

" I can’t begin to know or define for a complete stranger his or her truth,"

And yet, for months here, you tried to do exactly that, and attacked anyone who disagreed. To say nothing of the rank hypocrissy revealed when your responses were compared to each other over any timespan of more than two weeks.

Maybe you're getting out at just the right time, as advice columnists are now starting to be held accountable

Your equating in another comment of "old" and "evil" speaks volumes of the central flaw in your philosophy - the belief that everything that happened in society before enlightened you came along was some sort of dark conspiracy of meanies.

Eda M. Handly

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 1:41pm

Nemesis, I will miss you most. NOT. Meanies? I have a much better word for people like you (a few actually), and it's not very nice. Not to mention it would likely include language that would make your conservative ears ache and your cheeks blush with embarrassment. I leave you with that...

brassman

Fri, 08/02/2013 - 5:57pm

You've always lacked any sense of professionalism. That's why so many of us have found this whole column to be a joke.

Nemesis

Thu, 08/08/2013 - 12:16pm

Eda, there's that reading comprehension problem again. No one said anything about people like me, but rather people of prior generations. I don't get embarrassed, Eda - if I did, that would make me succumb to the peer pressure of the MTV generation and embrace the hedonistic values you endorse in your column.

Someday, you may really grow up, and realize that the world your forebears left you is not the result of a mean-spirited conspiracy to hurt peoples' precious feelings, but rather the result of millenia of trial and error, civilizations rising and falling, and seeing what works. Your approach of a world where pleasure is pursued without responsibility doesn't work without a massive welfare state to transfer the consequences to remaining responsible people , which will eventually destroy our nation. It's a shame that you suffer from a myopic, PC view of history that blinds you to this.

Is that really all you ever have? I'm hurt. *sarcasm* Get a bit more creative Kurt. Bor-ing

KURTje

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 10:47pm

"Truth is stranger than fiction." Thank you for the validation. Many know.

Eda M. Handly

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 12:00am

Nothing has been validated for you my friend. Find a hobby. It will serve you well.

Nemesis

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 12:20pm

No, you validated him quite nicely, by attacking him and his temerity to speak, rather than addressing what he said.

bigdad1205

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 11:34pm

The best advice I have read from you so far "just be good to one another". To many people can't figure that out these days. Good luck in your future endeavors.

Eda M. Handly

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 12:03am

Thanks bigdad. One day they will figure it out. Maybe... Be well.

shucks

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 12:35am

Bye , bye to bad advice.

LabMan

Fri, 08/02/2013 - 4:49pm

Good advice Eda on not responding to 4shizzle drivel! Others need to heed your advice.

Good 2 B Me

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 10:17am

Thanks for trying Eda. I know I busted your balls a few times, but it is amazing that people cannot figure this stuff out on their own.

You did what you could do. Like you said, in the end, it is really up to the person no matter what advice they get. Regardless, people will do what they will do.

Thanks for trying!

Good luck to you in the future!

Eda M. Handly

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 1:30pm

Thanks Good 2 B.

Nemesis

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 12:24pm

Funny how this follows immediately on a column last week that didn't elicit a single comment. Something tells me that this last column is just so much emo-psycho-babble trying to obscure that Eda read the writing on the wall. Methinks the lady protesteth overmuch.

brassman

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 1:20pm

Live your truth? This from the column of completely fake letters. Whatever.

Stop It

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 4:58pm

I believe Eda stated the the "fake letters" are what helped make her decision to quit. It became too obvious to many that read her column.

The Big Dogs Back

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 5:00pm

bullspit

brassman

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 7:04pm

Cow saliva again? Are you suffering from some odd fetish?

KURTje

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 6:35pm

Spoken like a savant Nemesis. Wisdom always trumps knowledge.

starryeyes83

Sun, 08/04/2013 - 5:28pm

"" I can't produce or save relationships that don't exist ""

So then the letters were made up by the writer of the column? Is that correct?

Because that's what I've said from the beginning. So now it's validated.